Saudi Arabia and the UAE are funneling millions of dollars to Palestinian groups to buy their abstention from the current wave of terror against Israel, while Iran and Hizballah spend cash to convince Palestinian extremists to keep the flames high. The Saudi-Iranian contest terror poses a major threat to the security and stability of Israel and Jordan. The Obama administration is left behind and Mahmoud Abbas is out in the cold as the Saudis and UAE go directly to Israel and Jordan.

In defiance of the arms embargo, Iran has placed an order for 100 Russian IL78 MKI tanker aircraft for refueling its air force in mid-flight, debkafile reports exclusively. The transaction runs contrary to the terms of the nuclear accord the six world powers and Iran signed in Vienna earlier this month. These tanker planes can simultaneously refuel 6-8 warplanes. Their acquisition brings Israel, 1.200km away – and the Middle East at large - within easy range of Iranian aerial bombardment. It puts Iran ahead of Israel in mid-air refueling resources.

The Netanyahu government, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, can only beat their heads futilely against the iron wall Barack Obama has built for Iran with the nuclear accord the six powers signed in Vienna Tuesday, July 14. Israel has the most to lose. It has been downgraded from its favored status in Washington and replaced by Iran. By this big geopolitical step, the US President has shifted the ground in the region, not only dumping Israel but the Arab world as a whole - and, incidentally, the Palestinians as well.

Behind the failed bombing attack on an Israeli military post in the northern Golan Sunday, April 26, hangs a big story: The bomb squad belonged to a new Druze militia, which Hizballah recruited, the Iranian Al Qods Brigades armed and whose mission was assigned by a Syrian intelligence master.

The coming DEBKA Weekly out next Friday shows this event to be a microcosm of Tehran’s tactics for muscling in on Syria’s million-strong Druze minority as the lever for broader regional dominion.

Control of the Red Sea Bab el-Mandeb Straits passed Tuesday, March 31 to pro-Iranian forces when the Yemeni Army’s 117th Brigade handed positions guarding the waterway to two Houthi commando battalions, debkafile reveals. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered two task forces to sail to the region to reinforce Houthi control of the strategic straits. Iran was involved in another development Tuesday, when unidentified aircraft bombed and destroyed a base in Burak, southwestern Libya, used by Iran to store arms purchased in Sudan for the Palestinian Hamas.

Iran’s top war commander, Al Qods Brigades chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani, landed in Sanaa Friday, March 27, debkafile reports, to organize a counter-offensive for the Saudi-Gulf-Egyptian operations against Tehran-backed Houthi rebel advances. By opening its third direct Middle East warfront after Syria and Iraq, Tehran was holding the Obama administration to its promise of support as the leading Middle East power, in return for signing a nuclear framework deal by March 31. Solemeini’s must urgently restore Iran’s sea and air supply lines to Yemen, cut off by Saudi-led air strikes.

The Palestinian Hamas is restored to the Iranian fold with the pledge of an annual allowance of $200 million, military assistance and advanced weapons, in return for a public avowal of Hamas support for Iran’s Syrian policy and Bashar Assad. The deal was secretly sealed Thursday, May 22 at a meeting in Doha between Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Hamas’s politburo head Khaled Mashaal. It places Hamas squarely in the radical Iran-Syrian-Hizballah bloc and re-opens the Gaza Strip door to dominant Iranian influence.

Tehran’s offensive for establishing itself as the leading Middle East power bar none is in full flight. Foreign Minister Javad Zerif used his Moscow visit to invite Vladimir Putin to visit Tehran. The Russian President accepted. The King of Morocco offered Iran of full membership in the Al Quds (Jerusalem) Committee of the Organization of Islamic States, with the approval of US Secretary of State John Kerry. Iran also sent out invitations to Gulf rulers to tour its nuclear reactor at Bushehr, combined with a round table discussion on regional nuclear cooperation.

The US and Iran agree to treat Tehran’s regional policies as separate from nuclear diplomacy to forestall obstacles which such opponents as Saudi Arabia and Israel may raise. Monday, Jan. 14, senior US sources admitted: “The US and Iran have sought to insulate the nuclear negotiations from the tensions over Iran’s regional policies.” On the Syrian issue, governments near and far will attend Geneva 2, but Israel is not invited, although events in next-door Syria and Lebanon directly impinge on its security. Sharon would not have taken this snub lying down.